Training

From left to right: Federico Pisanu, Dominika Szymańska and Paul de Roos — The Parkinson’s Disease Summer School was one of the occasions bringing us together.

More than 10 years of experience with education and training and diverse target audiences from university students to continuing professional development.

In 2005 I attended IFMSA TnT (Train the Trainer) workshop to familiarize myself with the basic skills needed to deliver educational experiences with a focus on skills development. In student organisations this is referred to as “training” or “soft skills training”. In professional life training is usually facilitated or coordinated in house by Human Resource departments or ad hoc in a local context e.g to familiarize yourself with workplace routines.

For me the primary motivation to engage in training was to develop myself further. Once you realise how much you benefit from this, you can’t stop. I wanted to be a better doctor than my medical school was preparing me to be and there is an abundance of skills to acquire, which is not readily accessible in a medical school.

Leadership Summer School

In 2006, I founded a leadership summer school which became my main vehicle of improvement of my own training skills. This project aimed to bring together the best trainers from student organisations and leadership talent of over 30 international student organisations, for an intensive experiential educational program. In 2017, the 10th edition of the summer school will take place.

Parkinson’s Disease Summer School

In 2008, a summer school on parkinson’s disease was created to bring together soft skills training and research oriented academic learning in a concept aiming to challenge current practices of university learning, by showing things can be done different and better. After 5 editions, this summer school is currently not organised. We can however restart our efforts any time.